Bruised and Batterskulled: Legacy Top 8 at SCG Open Indy

Rudy is a grinder from beautiful "can't decide on what season it's in" New Jersey. His notable finishes include 13th at GP DC and a win at SCG Atlanta. Legacy is his favorite format and has the impossible dream of it becoming a PTQ format.

I spent more than 12 hours traveling from New Jersey to Indianapolis, and the car ride consisted of me talking with everyone about what decks we should play, teasing my friends and a lot of sleeping. When we arrived at the invitational I started off with an awesome 1-3 record before mulling to four against RUG Delver in Game 3 of my first Legacy match. You can guess how that game went.

I definitely wasn’t feeling great about my playing ability. I joined the Standard Challenge (which is a great way to test your deck and make changes) and crushed it 4-0, not losing a single game. I was feeling confident for the Standard Open but a quick drop at 2-3 sent me back to my room to accept defeat. I couldn’t stop thinking about why I wasn’t doing well. After discussing it with my roommates, I came to the conclusion that I was playing too fast. I assumed too much without thinking each play through. I also realized Esper Stoneblade would probably be the worst deck in the room, but I wasn’t changing decks so I’d have to crush people.

Round 2 vs. James Higginbottom (Sneak and Show)

Game 1

Jim is a good friend of mine from Jersey. The previous night he crushed me over and over again during testing. Needless to say, I thought I was in for a quick trip to the X-1 bracket. I won the die roll and had no discard but Karakas in my hand made me comfortable if he played Emrakul, the Aeons Torn. James led with a Turn 2 Show and Tell into Griselbrand as played Karakas and immediately bounced Griselbrand when he attempted to draw seven. My Batterskull was too fast a clock, and he played nothing else. I found after the game that he drew five lands with Griselbrand. Rough beats.

Sideboard

Game 2

Jim mulliganed to six before using of his resources to cast Show and Tell with one card in hand. I had Vendilion Clique to take his Emrakul and take down the match.

Round 3 vs. Reid Duke (Reanimator)

Game 1

I saw Reid playing Reanimator the previous round and was slightly worried because it isn’t a good matchup for Stoneblade. Reid also is a great player, as evidenced by his Legacy Open win with the same archetype in Worcester. He started with Reanimate on Griselbrand with double Daze backup to win the game on the spot.

Round 4 vs. Jim Davis (Reanimator)

Game 1

Jim is usually playing Goblins, and I was surprised to find out he didn’t play the deck. The winning deck list from the tournament is actually his 75. It was a close game in which I used Karakas to bounce his Griselbrand. But he ended up killing me with a 5/5 Djinn that bounced all my lands (Tidespout Tyrant) before I could slam Jace to win with Jim at a precarious 1 life.

I was running pretty well, sitting at 5-0 despite making a couple mistakes because I caught them before or realized them shortly after. My friends deserve thanks for yelling at me when I was playing too fast.

Round 6 vs. Eric Prim (UB Delver Stifle Nought)

Game 1

Usually when I get to this kind of penultimate round I fall apart and only Top 16. I was even more nervous when my opponent went Dreadnaught into Stifle with double Daze backup (sounds familiar huh?). I lost this game in short order and thought I was just playing against UB Stifle.

Sideboard

Game 2

I was in for a surprise when he revealed Delver and Bitterblossom with my first discard spell. It was a long and serious grind, and everyone around me was fairly certain I was going to lose. He had a Turn 4 Bitterblossom while I used Stoneforge Mystic to search up Batterskull. Turn 5 he played Tombstalker and I had nothing in hand but a Batterskull. After a couple turns gaining just enough life to stay alive, I drew a Jitte and Lingering Souls, which allowed me to take over the game.

Game 3

It wasn’t a close affair. I got Batterskull into play after ripping apart his hand with discard spells.

I was sitting at 6-0 and could draw into the Top 8 if I won either of my next two matches. I was incredibly nervous but knew I could beat Maverick and thought I had a decent chance against Combo Elves, even though I had never played against the deck and didn’t really understand how it worked. I moved on ready for my next round when I got called to a video feature match against …

Round 7 vs. Chris Andersen (Combo Elves)

Yeah, Elves. I figured if I could land Jitte he couldn’t win. That just shows you how little I understood about the matchup. You can watch our match on SCG Live and see me get crushed on camera.

Sideboard

Game 2

It was more of the same and I got comboed again. Yeah, I got crushed. And it was on camera, too, so it sucked more. I was sure I could rally back until I sat down across my next opponent.

Round 8 vs. Alex Hon (UW Stoneblade)

I tried to hold a conversation with Alex, but he was having none of it. He was being kind of rude, which made me a bit angry. You’re there to have fun, make friends and hopefully make money or win a trophy. You don’t have to talk, but don’t be rude about it.

Game 1

Alex mulled to six but had double Stoneforge Mystic. I had no answer to anything and got crushed.

Sideboard

Game 2

It almost sent me on full-blown tilt when I mulled to five on the play and had to keep a bad hand. Somehow, I battled out of it to win the game. Alex went to his fifth land when I only had three lands in play, no cards in hand, and Stoneforge Mystic on the battlefield. My opponent had Vendilion Clique on the field and then played Batterskull. I had to draw some perfect series of cards to not lose this game. I drew my card face down, and upon peeling it I almost immediately slammed it down. It was a Vindicate, which I used to destroy Batterskull. He drew and attacked me for three again before I drew Lingering Souls and cast it. My opponent had no answer. He drew and passed back into me drawing Preordain into Batterskull. I flashed it in end of turn and beat my opponent down.

Game 3

I couldn’t believe I ripped like such a fiend to win that game, and I was still feeling really nervous. I watched as my Turn 2 Stoneforge Mystic for Batterskull didn’t get countered. I then used Snapcaster Mages and Creeping Tar Pit to close out the game in three turns. A sign of the slip, and I was off to the Top 8.

Top 8 vs. Josh Glantzman (Maverick)

It felt really good to Top 8 an event, and I felt confident knowing my opponent was Maverick.

Sideboard

Games 2 and 3

You can watch these games on camera at SCG Live. Unfortunately for Josh, I had Turn 1 discard and he had two loose keeps; in his position, I don’t think I would have mulled either anyway.

Top 4 vs. Dustin Taylor (RUG Delver)

You can read about the matches here, and I sideboarded exactly like Round 5. I felt it gave the best defense to the deck even though I fell in two games.

My match against Dustin was rough. I drew all my nonbasics, had only a couple fetchlands and he had a powerful start to my weak one. I probably should have mulliganed more aggresively to get a hand that could put up a fight. My biggest mistake in Game 1 was not taking one of his two Tarmogoyfs. Scavenging Ooze isn’t that scary when you have a lot of Lingering Souls tokens and they have only one green source. In Game 2, my biggest mistake was when I Cliqued him. Vendilion Clique is not easy to use correctly and I messed up in this instance. I saw his hand after he dredged Life from the Loam and he Bolted me in response; I saw Scalding Tarn, Misty Rainforest and Life from the Loam. The correct play would have been to take nothing and let him play off the top of his deck. Instead I took Loam and was punished when he drew Lightning Bolt. Of course, I peeked and had the Blue Elemental Blast on top of my deck.

It’s unfortunate, but next time I’ll get the trophy. (I hope!) The biggest challenge for a Stoneblade deck is one which taxes your resources to the max. Put too much pressure on a Stoneblade deck, and it will be in trouble. RUG Delver is hands down the toughest matchup but also winnable. Use your resources wisely and drag RUG Delver to the mid to late game where you have powerful spells and they have weak creatures.

Q & A

Why are there so many one-ofs?

The deck has eight fetchlands, five draw spells, four Stoneforge Mystic and three Snapcaster Mage. Moving through your deck to find one-ofs isn’t actually difficult to accomplish when your deck is thinner and cards like Brainstorm exist. The split for discard was two Thoughtseize, two Inquisition of Kozilek and one Cabal Therapy. When you have discard and a bunch of creatures, Cabal Therapy can really just destroy an opponent’s hand. You can see evidence of this in my match against Reid Duke.

Now that Land Tax is unbanned, could it be useful in this deck?

This is a tough one actually. Land Tax is a really powerful card but without an engine within Stoneblade to really abuse this. If you wanted to abuse the card with Stoneblade, I would suggest playing Scroll Rack and Land Tax in a straight UW build with possibly an Entreat the Angels to go over the top of all the fair decks.

Hopefully I can get a good flight out for GP Atlanta and use Stoneforge to make more money. Good luck in your next tournament and feel free to message me @itssobza.